Today, the UK Parliament voted to declare a “climate emergency” and became the first in Europe to clearly underline the urgency to address climate change. The vote in the House of Commons came as an answer to wide-spread citizen mobilisations in the UK which urged decision makers to step up climate action in an unprecedented way.
In reaction to today’s vote, Wendel Trio, Director of CAN Europe said:
“We congratulate the UK Parliament for recognising the urgency to act and putting climate change on the top of their agenda. Obviously this needs to be followed by real action to drastically and immediately reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We expect all European governments to act similarly and start reducing greenhouse gas emission at the scale needed. EU leaders should put climate action at the heart of the Future of Europe Summit in Sibiu of 9 May.
A strong European commitment for immediate climate action is necessary and the EU needs to set clear and ambitious pollution reduction targets for 2030 and beyond at the June European Council well ahead of the UN Secretary General Climate Summit taking place in September 2019.”
The UN Secretary General’s Summit on 23 September is aiming to get commitments from countries and other non-state actors to ramp up climate action. The EU’s empty- handed participation to the Summit would be a failure to address the rising concern of its citizens on climate change while undermining its position as a global climate leader.
ENDS
Contact:
Goksen Sahin, CAN Europe Communications Coordinator, goksen@caneurope.org, +32 468 45 39 20
Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe is Europe’s leading NGO coalition fighting dangerous climate change. With over 150 member organisations from 35 European countries, representing over 1.700 NGOs and more than 47 million citizens, CAN Europe promotes sustainable climate, energy and development policies throughout Europe.